Dutch trance DJ Tiesto branches out

NEW YORK (Billboard) - A wax statue at Madame Tussaud's. A memorabilia case at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas. Playing for a crowd of 200,000 on a beach in Brazil. Closing this year's Coachella festival after the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Selling out two 25,000-ticket Amsterdam shows in less than two hours.

It sounds like the resume of a classic rock band or a red-hot pop star. But it actually belongs to a DJ/producer: Dutch phenomenon Tiesto.

The 38-year-old, who looks more like a gangly teenager, is breaking the usual rules of dance music, which dictate obscurity at the worst and a career spent bubbling just beneath the mainstream surface at the best. Because in addition to moving units, packing venues and maintaining fan loyalty, he's become a sellable commodity. The trance DJ has his own line of Reebok RBK shoes and was recently tapped by Microsoft to launch its new Vista operating system for the Dutch market, placing him on par with

"I think my music is accessible to all kinds of music lovers," the personable jock says. "It's easy to blend into all kinds of events, and I flirt with different styles, such as rock and classical."

It's that accessibility and willingness to shape-shift that has won Tiesto fans worldwide and that call from Microsoft.

The partnership included a Vista application built especially for Tiesto, which was downloaded from his Web site more than a thousand times a day during its first week of availability. A Tiesto toolbar of sorts, the plug-in allows fans to keep up with the DJ in real-time and get live alerts on gigs, appearances and new music. Tiesto introduced the application at the January 29 Vista launch event in Amsterdam.

While Tiesto is at his biggest outside America, he's still the most successful dance artist in the United States. "I think his music is almost hypnotic," says Patrick Moxey, president of Tiesto's U.S. label, Ultra Records. "He strikes a chord with middle America, college kids and frat boys, as well as the usual urban cool clubgoer."

His last three full-length releases cracked the 70,000-unit mark, and 2003 double-CD compilation "Nyana" (Nettwerk) recently hit 87,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The new "Elements of Life," out April 10 via Ultra, captures the drama of the live Tiesto experience, which is "like being hit with a steamroller," Moxey says. "It puts you into a zone and takes you to another place."

With polished collaborators, simple but hooky melodies and velvety synth sounds, "Elements" is like a rock opera without guitars. There are pretty pop moments ("Everything" featuring Motorcycle singer Jes), freight train instrumentals ("Carpe Noctum"), quirky ballads ("In the Dark") and emotive cries for help ("Break My Fall" with popular producer and underrated singer BT on vocals), all of which could find favor with nondance fans.

Which is, of course, the goal. "Electronic music isn't that big yet in America," Tiesto's manager Maurice Verschueren says with a sense of inevitability. "It's hard for a DJ to break ground and become familiar in the mainstream music circuit."

But if anyone can do it, it's Tiesto. "I don't think (other dance artists') music grabs quite like Tiesto's does," Moxey says. "There's something about him that inspires people to buy his albums."

Reuters/Billboard

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